


Soft Spot

by UntidyCeiling



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012)
Genre: Big Brother and Little Brother, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Fluff, Comfort, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Late at Night, Michelangelo - Freeform, Nightmares, Raph - Freeform, Raphael - Freeform, TMNT, TMNT 2012, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Freeform, can't sleep, mikey - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27038779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UntidyCeiling/pseuds/UntidyCeiling
Summary: It's late and all Raphael really wants to do is sleep but he has to help someone else first... Bro fluff!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	Soft Spot

Raph closed his eyes as he nursed a cold glass of orange juice. He was exhausted, but as much as he wanted to sleep, he couldn't. His mind simply wouldn't allow him, which sucked a whole heck-of-a-lot. But truth be told, all his brothers were exhausted and craved a good night's rest. Especially Leonardo. The dude was working his butt off trying to lead his team and keep them all intact, so when they finally entered the Lair after three hours of non-stop fighting and battling the Foot, the first thing the oldest did was head straight to bed. And good riddance too. He was starting to get really irritating and under Raphael's skin with all his leader mumbo jumbo and annoying lectures about all the things that Raph did wrong. Ptsh. It's not like he's the perfect baby angel he pretends to be. The dude causes problems too.

Raph huffed as he planted his half-empty glass on the counter and stared at it with a deep scowl on his face. Okay, so maybe the fight would have ended a lot sooner if he hadn't gone all guns blazing and actually heeded to his bossy older brother's orders. Give him a break. He just didn't see how Lame-o-nardo could be so correct this time.

At least no one got hurt.

Well, except Raphael's pride. Oh well. It's in the past. And if Leo doesn't bring it up again, it was going to stay in the past. No more thinking about it.

The hotheaded ninja rubbed his hand down his face feeling more exhausted. Perhaps it was time to try and get some sleep before training. It was only three hours away, but hey, some sleep is better than no sleep. Right?

Right.

Raph abandoned his orange juice and shuffled out of the kitchen, letting a yawn corrupt his face as he made his way to his room. And gosh, just thinking about laying down in his bed sounded nice. But unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen when he heard a muffled, "Leo!"

The second oldest whipped his head around to stare hard at the closed door of his youngest brother's room. Was that in his head or was Michelangelo trying to wake up their grumpy, sleep-deprived brother?

"Leo!"

Nope. Not in his head.

"Goshdang it, Mikey!" Raph hissed as he hurried to the room and threw open the door, letting the dim light from the Lair spill into the messy room. Leo was the lightest sleeper out of all of them. Any little noise of distress would make him bolt up and come flying to the scene, and Raphael couldn't let that happen. He couldn't handle another agitated Leonardo on his case about every little goshdarn thing.

"You trying to wake up the whole state of New York, cos you're doing a really great job at it," Raphael growled and saw his youngest brother pull his blankets up tighter around himself, watching the older turtle with large eyes.

"You're not Leo…"

"Great observation, Sherlock Holmes. I am not Leo."

"I need him."

"News flash, he's sleeping, as you should be. What are you doing trying to wake him up anyway? Turn him into the orneriest ninja that's ever roamed the planet?"

"No…" he sighed heavily, "can you just go get him for me?"

"No."

From the little light in the room, Raph could see Mikey pucker up his lips in annoyance. Well, that makes two of us.

"What do you need?"

"Leo."

"Well obviously, I'm not Leo. If you don't need anything, I'm outta here."

The youngest Hamato pulled his blankets up to his eyeballs and stared at Raph with those huge, light blue orbs that could penetrate through any amount of darkness. Those blue orbs that could give the best darndest puppy dog eyes that made him look invulnerable and hard to not fall victim to. And ugh! Curse those baby blues! They were just plain annoying sometimes.

Raph closed his eyes for a split second knowing he was about to do what he 100% didn't want to do—bidding his bed farewell before mazing his way through the cluttered and disarray room towards his little brother.

"Move over." Raph grumped, waving his hand at him, indicating to make room. Mikey did as he was told without a word, shifting next to the wall and watching Raph groan as he made contact with the mattress. "Alright. Talk to me."

But he didn't. Mikey just stared at him like he wasn't seeing him quite right, which really annoyed Raph. What? Did Mikey honestly think Raph was going to retrieve Leonardo? No friggin' way, kid brother.

"Come on. I usually can't get you to shut up. What's going on in that thick skull of yours?" Raph poked Mikey's head and suppressed a smirk when Mikey full-on pouted at him.

"Uuuuugh. I guess if I can't have Leo, I suppose you'll have to do."

"Yeah, yeah. Leo's real special, got it. Now spit it out."

"Sheesh, so persistent. Alright… I had a nightmare about the Shredder, and, and he killed Leo... I had to watch him die, and… it sucked a lot…" Mikey whispered, staring hard at his comforter. Raph felt a frown forming on his lips as he watched his little brother shake slightly. Man, okay, comforting was usually Leo's and Donnie's job, not Raphael's. This was definitely not his territory in the slightest. Leo was definitely more equipped for this situation.

"It was a really bad nightmare…" Mikey continued after a long pause of silence, "he got stabbed, and I had to watch him die in my arms, and, and it was just awful…" Raph didn't fail to notice Mikey rub his face against his blanket, mopping up what he supposed were tears. It made his insides squeeze uncomfortably at the sight and he sent a silent message out to his older bro, hoping his voice could be heard in Leo's dreams; 'Leo, your little brother needs you… come and get me out of this situation… right now pleeease!'

Raph grunted softly as a few seconds went by with Mikey rubbing his face against his comforter. Leonardo wasn't going to come and save the day. He knew that. So it was up to him to comfort the sniveling juvenile. If only he knew the right thing to say, just like Leo did. Leo always had the answers and the quick responses and knew exactly what to say to make everything better.

"I'm okay, though." Raph blinked back to the present then glanced down at his most annoying little sibling to see him plaster on a watery smile. He was closing up, shrugging it off like he usually does when something upsets him.

"Don't give me that load of crap, Mikey. You can't go from crying one second to pretending everything's fine."

It came out harsher than he meant to. Arg. Great job Raphael. Real comforting. And now Mikey looked like he was about ready to kick Raph out of his room with a 'thanks for stopping by, but you made everything fifty thousand times worse!'

"Look, I'm sorry, Mikey." Raph grumbled out through fingers as he dragged them down his face in exhaustion, "I'm not Leo. I'm terrible when it comes to coddling and pretending and lying that everything's going to be okay."

Mikey visibly stiffened next to him and Raph bit his lip as he tried to collect his thoughts. This isn't going well!

"But I do know that I will protect you and Donnie and Leo until the day that I die. I won't let the Shredder kill any of you. I won't let the Kraang hurt any of you. I will take on the whole Pentagon and any army just to protect you and keep you all safe. That nightmare you had, it wasn't realistic because I would have done everything in my power to make sure Leo didn't die. You can count on that lil' bro. So you can kick that dream to the curve and call it out for being a big fat liar because your big brother won't ever let that happen. You got it, Mikey?"

The youngest hadn't said anything during his whole speech and Raph noticed that he was crying again. Boy did he suck at this or what. Okay. That's it, Leo. You're done sleeping. Time to fix your baby brother because obviously, I screwed it up big time and he's falling apart before my very eyes.

Raph was just about to slide off the mattress and admit defeat, ready to fetch the brother in blue when Mikey threw his arms around his torso and hugged him tightly, burying his face against him like a pillow, and only it took Raphael a few seconds or days for his mind to register what was happening and put his arms gently around Mikey's carapace. This wasn't what he was expecting, but he supposed he'll take it.

"You don't need to be Leo, Raph, all you need to be is you. I'm glad you're here with me, even if your attempt at being comforting is kinda lousy..." Mikey whispered from below and Raph huffed a small laugh.

"Don't get all mushy on me now."

"S-sorry!" Mikey hiccuped as he rubbed a stray tear away from his cheek and looked up at Raph with a tiny smile, and Raphael felt his body relax against Mikey's deflated pillow. Then took a breath before asking, "are you feeling better?"

"Yes. I am."

"Good. Your total for my time adds up to be no pranks for a whole week and calling me 'Raph all-wise and powerful.'"

"I don't know if I'm ready to bestow that title on you yet." Mikey's smile grew more genuine and Raph found himself rolling his eyes hard at the ceiling.

"Really? You're complaining about that and not the fact that you can't do pranks for a whole week? I thought I had you figured out little bro, but boy was I wrong."

Raph smirked slightly when he earned a giggle from Mikey then heard him yawn; "maybe you don't know me that well then." He feigned hurt as he fixed sad puppy dog eyes on Raph.

"You'd like to think that huh? Well, I do know you well enough to know that you're exhausted and you need to sleep before training, so stop messin' around and get some shut-eye."

Mikey slowly laid his head against Raphael's plastron and closed his eyes, bringing the blanket up against his cheek.

"Not on me, ya goofball." Raph tried to push Mikey off but the teen's grip was like iron steel and would not budge. "If Leo comes in and sees me like this, I will pound you into the next century."

"Okay." His voice was soft and showed no sign of fear and Raph scowled as he tried to get Mikey to move again then huffed in defeat when he failed. This kid. He's going to be the death of his reputation! But Raph's features softened as Mikey began to breathe more deeply once sleep had stolen him away once more. And the red-masked turtle didn't have the heart to move his little brother off and chance waking him up, so he left him there, placing a hand on top of Mikey's shell and watching over his youngest sibling; wondering just how his little brother could make him so soft.


End file.
